Mediterranean Diet Basics

The basics of the Mediterranean diet can be broken into 9 important areas
of change for your health:

1. Vegetables -
This one's pretty easy. It’s hard to eat too
many vegetables...2. Legumes - Making beans your choice for
a starch...3. Fruits and nuts - Fruit is the perfect snack...4. Cereals - Whole grains are really good for you...5. Fish - More fish,
less meat...6. Olive oil - This really means eating more
monounsaturated fat...7. Dairy products - The traditional
Mediterranean diet doesn’t have
dairy products as a major focus...8. Meats - Less meat and
lean meats...9. Alcohol - There is good evidence that moderate
use of alcohol is good for you...

Just Tell Me What to Eat!

Timothy S. Harlan, MD, FACP has counseled thousands of his patients on healthy, sustainable weight loss. Now he's compiled his best tips and recipes into a six-week plan for you to learn how to eat great food that just happens to be great for you - and if losing weight is your goal, you can do that, too.

Get the prescription for better health as well as healthy weight loss, including:

(part 2)

Prior to 2003, there had been a number of studies to indicate how healthy
the Mediterranean Diet is but no definitive data. In a large study that examined
over 22,000 healthy adults in Greece, Antonia Trichopoulou and his colleagues
found that those eating a Mediterranean diet had a significant reduction
in death due to heart disease and cancer.

This was the first large scale study to evaluate people “prospectively” with
the researchers following participants over time. Dr. Trichopoulou and his
colleagues evaluated the diets of those in the study for a year prior to
the beginning of data collection. They then looked at nine dietary components.
A value was assigned of either 1 or 0 for each dietary category. If a participant
was found to have eaten a diet higher in one of the nine dietary components
they received a 1. The maximum score for a “perfect” Mediterranean
diet would be 9 and a score of 0 would indicate a more Western diet pattern.
They also issued a lifestyle questionnaire that recorded physical activity.

The results are pretty amazing. Those who had better scores lived longer.
The best part is that small changes have a large effect. A two point improvement
(say from 5 to 7) on Dr. Trichopoulou’s scale resulted in a 25% reduction
in death from heart disease. This would mean that by simply eating more vegetables
and legumes you could markedly improve your health.

The results of this research are so fantastic because they show
how simple changes can make a major difference in your health.
While the researchers looked a number of factors, the core of
the Mediterranean diet can be broken into 9 important areas of
change for your health.Next Page »

Research Articles - The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean Diet and Genetics
We know that following the Mediterranean Diet can help reduce your risk of heart
disease, improve your cholesterol scores, and help you live longer, but what
we don't know is WHY that is. Research studies have suggested that the Mediterranean
Diet helps to reduce the systemic inflammation which has been identified as
a major risk of heart disease, but the results of those studies have been inconsistent
at best.

If You Needed Any More Evidence:
More on the Mediterranean Diet
Researchers in Italy recently pooled the results
of 12 previously-performed studies of the effects of the Mediterranean
Diet on people's overall health (BMJ 2008; 337:a1344). These studies
included, in total, over 1.5 million people and each study lasted between
three and 18 years.

Which is better, The Mediterranean
Diet or a Low-Carb Diet?
There is more and more evidence that eating a carbohydrate
restricted diet like Atkins can help with weight loss. Research is mixed
but low carbohydrate may help better with cholesterol but not quite as
well for blood sugar. The fact of the matter is that for most of those
eating a Western style diet any change is a change for the better.

The Mediterranean Diet and Death
in America
I've reported in the past on studies that investigate
the Mediterranean Diet's effects on cholesterol and heart disease. Recently
the National Cancer Institute, in partnership with AARP, published the
findings of a long term, large scale, prospective study (meaning the subjects
were followed through time) on the Mediterranean Diet and its effects
on all-cause mortality in the United States (Arch Intern Med 2007;
167(22) 2461-2468).

Mediterranean
Diet, lifestyle factors, and the elderly:
Researchers in the Department of Dietetics
at Harokopio University, in Athens, Greece, evaluated the combined effects
of a Mediterranean Diet, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and other
factors on the cholesterol levels of persons 65 and over.

Just a little olive oil:
Olive oil has a well-deserved reputation
for helping to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Most of that reputation is from research into the Mediterranean Diet,
so named because it is a collection of dietary habits followed by those
in the region of the Mediterranean Sea.

More
interesting Mediterranean Diet research:
Eating a Mediterranean diet
has clearly been shown to help reduce the risk of heart disease. Numerous
studies have been completed, but most have compared the diet to a typical
Western diet....

A
Mediterranean Diet Won't Make You Fat:
You've probably heard that
a "Mediterranean Diet" will help
you live longer. . . . Recently, though, there's
been some concern that although a Mediterranean diet
might be good for your heart, it appears to lead
to weight gain and obesity.